52% of Japanese: Abe statement should include apologies for wartime aggression

52% of Japanese: Abe statement should include apologies for wartime aggression. February. 18, 2015 06:41. .

A majority of Japanese people think that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should include expressions of apologies for the country`s wartime atrocities in his planned statement in August to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, an opinion poll by a major Japanese daily showed.

The Asahi Shimbun reported Tuesday that 52 percent of respondents said Abe`s statement should contain those words "colonial rule and aggression," "deep remorse" and "heartfelt apology," according to the survey conducted on February 14 and 15.

In addition, 62 percent of the respondents positively assessed that the statements issued by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, given the expressions of "deep remorse" and "heartfelt apology" for Japan`s colonial rule of neighboring countries. Just 20 percent of the respondents were negative about the previous statements` inclusion of Japan`s apologies and self-reflection.

However, Abe told the Diet on Monday that he would uphold those past statements "as a whole," avoiding the key point of the issue. "As for what will be in my statement, it will be self-examination of Japan during the last World War, the steps we have taken to become a peaceful country, what contribution Japan will make to the Asia-Pacific region and the world from now on," he said Tuesday.

Separately, the master Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki said in an interview with a radio talk show, "In the past, Japan imitated imperialism in order not to be dominated. As the result, it brought about a war that killed three million people and was hit twice by atomic bombs." He added that neighboring countries` resentment against Japan persists, even though Japan made legal settlements.